Dear Investors,

The first quarter of 2021 was the most productive time in Wefunder's history. Everyone on our team worked insane hours to prepare for the law reforms that rolled out on March 15th. It paid off. Our growth chart is worth 1000 words:

Metrics

• $272M GMV run rate. Over Q1, we had $68M of investments & reservations. Growth is accelerating. January: $16.2M. February: $19.3M. March: $32.1M.
• 6X Year over Year Growth. Q1 2021 is $68M. 2020 was $10.6M.  
• $11.5M revenue run rate.  We earned just short of $1M per month in February and March. (We earn revenue after rounds close. The revenue that will come from the $32M of March commitments will likely hit at the end of Q2).  
• Profitable. We've been profitable over the entirety of Q1.  
• Raised $6M. $160M pre-money. We closed a Reg D round of ~$2.5M on March 12th from accredited investors. On March 15th, we opened a Regulation Crowdfunding round with over $3M of commitments to date. After we close in May, we expect to have over $10M of cash in the bank. 
• 41% Q1 market share. According to Kingscrowd, Wefunder has 41% market share in Reg CF over Q1. Republic is 25% and StartEngine 23%. Our advantage is growing. Our March 2021 market share increased to 44%.
• 3+ IPOs. I'm aware of 3 startups funded by us that are preparing for an IPO. Gingko Bioworks - preparing a $20 Billion IPO - is one not confidential.  

Q1 Work Highlights

Our recent growth was a result of tremendous sacrifice by the Wefunder team to prepare for the new law changes that rolled out on March 15th. Some include:

• New branding& design. We made a new design system, and then applied it to a new home page, company profile, and founder page. We'll roll it out to the rest of Wefunder's web site over 2021.  
• PBC Impact Report. Our team made a beautiful Public Benefit Corporation Impact Report to quantify our social impact.  
• SPVs. Using the new laws, we pioneered a way for every company on Wefunder to use an SPV at no cost to either issuers or investors. This was important to convince startups with other funding options to use Wefunder.  
• 35+ YC companies launched. We used the new laws to convince dozens of Y Combinator startups to raise on Wefunder. These are the caliber of startups that have plenty of other funding options. We consider this a good signal that the new laws are now good enough to compete with accredited angels & VCs.
• Self-Service Platform: Launch in 10 minutes. Using the new laws, startups can start "testing the waters" with potential investors in under 10 minutes. (It used to take them a month to do compliance work first). We expect this to be the main growth driver for Wefunder over 2021.
• Internal tooling. We've had more investments in Q1 than almost all of 2020. We improved our software to better automate and streamline our operations.

In order to accomplish this, our entire team - about 30 employees - quarantined together in Lake Tahoe in March and worked alongside each other 24/7.

Main Challenge

Our biggest challenge: our growth has been exponential, but our hiring has been static. Our full-time team is under 30 people. Most of our competitors have over 2X more people. We have more traction then almost the rest of the industry combined... but with one-third to one-half the team size of our main competitors.

From 2012-2020, we kept our team very lean. That's how we survived until the laws were reformed. But now it's holding us back: in product, in customer support, and in operations. In some ways, we're a startup with Series B traction, but with barely a Series A-sized team. We need to fix that ASAP. Thankfully, we have more than enough cash to do so.  

Recruiting is now our top priority. That's the only way to ride this dragon without falling off to our deaths.  

Ask for Help

Our most critical priority is hiring across the board. If you know a candidate, please send them to our jobs page or ask them to email me at [email protected].  

Some roles we are hiring for:

• Product Designer
• Visual Designer
• Payments Engineer
• Product Engineer
• Head of Talent
• HR Manager
• Head of Customer Support
• Head of Marketing
• Head of EU
• Head of Social Media
• Founder in Residence
• Venture Partner
• Business Development
• Head of Sales
• Head of Growth
• Controller
• Compliance Manager
• Head of Community

... or anyone, smart, driven, hungry to achieve, and fits our cultural values. We can always create a role for the right kind of person.  

Most of us are in SF, but we're opening other offices across the US and in the EU.  

Thank you

Wefunder now has over 5,000 investors. Some of you backed us as early as 2012. Some have just recently invested.  

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support. We'll work our hardest to justify your belief in us. We hope the best is yet to come.